REGINA, Sask. — The provincial government is reporting overwhelming support for social media limits for youth in Saskatchewan.
According to the survey results from the return of postcards mailed out to Saskatchewan residents this year, 86 per cent of respondents believe there should be some sort of social media limits for youth within the province of Saskatchewan.
Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Lori Carr called the results “pretty overwhelming.” She pointed out that of those who said no to social media restrictions, there were still 68.06 per cent who said they supported parental consent.
On other questions, when asked about what the preferred age limit should be, a majority — 58.47 per cent — responded that it should be age 16. The second-highest total was 13.13 per cent for age 18.
There was also a clear response to the question of whether any of the social media platforms should be exempt. The top choice for exemption was YouTube at 30.89 per cent. The others — Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok — all came in at a little over 17 per cent.
In total, there were 26,000 responses, or about five per cent of the surveys that were distributed this summer.
Carr thought that was an adequate response, pointing to polls done on the basis of 500 to 800 responses.
“We got 26,000 responses from across Saskatchewan,” said Carr, saying “we are very confident in it.” Carr said the total cost of the mailout was $180,000.
Laura Lawrence, CEO of Youth Matter Canada, said the response is “very close to what we're hearing from youth.”
“We've spent the last two years with our online harms prevention program across the province connecting with thousands of youth. 91 per cent of youth ages 12 to 18 indicated that social media platforms expose them to harmful content. And 85 per cent of youth had suggested and shared that it also impacts their mental health.”
As for the sentiment that YouTube be given an exemption, Lawrence said youth actually were sharing with them that YouTube is “one of the problems because of its addictive algorithm, the interface, the non-stop play, and many youth of young ages are exposed to harmful content on that platform.”
Lawrence pointed to the YouTube algorithms as a particular issue, saying YouTube is “definitely just as harmful as Facebook when it comes to algorithms and what our youth are seeing.”
The federal government has already announced plans to move forward with social media limitations for youth. In June, it announced it would introduce the Safe Social Media Act (Bill C-34), which includes among its provisions a minimum age of 16 to have a social media account — although it stops short of being a full ban. The federal government also said the act will require social media platforms and AI chatbot services to do more to protect children and make their platforms safe by design.
As for its own next steps, Carr said the province has “already taken the results of the survey and we have sent them to the federal government.”
“Because the purpose of this survey was to get the opinion of Saskatchewan parents and families of what they thought of social media limits. And they spoke out loud and clear and we passed that information along because we do know that they are developing that legislation. And so we want them to be informed on what Saskatchewan people think.”
She said the province is in the process of setting up a follow-up meeting with federal minister Marc Miller to discuss the results of the survey.
“I think it's important for them just to understand where Saskatchewan families are at and what the data is that we received.”
As for what the feds will actually do with the results, Carr said “we'll have to wait and see exactly what they come up with specifically, but just showing the data that we received is what we'll give them.”
